W.E.B. Du Bois: “We are degrading some sorts of work by honoring others, and then expressing surprise that most people object to having…”

All this segregation by color is largely independent of that natural clustering by social grades common to all communities.

It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity.

Alas, with the years all this fine contempt began to fade; for the words I longed for, and all their dazzling opportunities, were theirs, not mine.

The form and disposition of the laborers’ cabins throughout the Black Belt is to-day the same as in slavery days.